1, 2, 3, 4, we don’t
want your nonsensical
prevarication!The lone pro-war demonstrator at Saturday's march may have made the most effective anti-war argument of the lot of us who marched against President Bush's war against Iraq. His sign read, "Hitler had anti-war protesters, too." Exactly.
Unfortunately, what struck me most at the protest was the virtual atmosphere. By virtual I mean the march and rally felt like a "virtual" protest.
Those of us who seek a peaceful resolution to the Iraqi debacle apparently have decided we cannot get our message into the corporate-owned national media without puppets and theater, so we kind of giddily, apologetically protest.
We need to ask, how can the community at large, blindly buying SUVs and digital TVs, be brought to an awareness of its complicity in the coming conflict. Surely there is a better way. A powerful, somber and respectful way to attract the soccer moms and businessmen who now quietly hope the war lasts only a few days (and then we can get back to business -- never mind the Iraqi dead) to Hawaii's anti-war movement.
RICHARD WALKER / RWALKER@STARBULLETIN.COM
Kimo Jadrnicek listened to anti-war speeches Saturday at Pearl Harbor.
The anti-war movement needs to do justice to the cause of peace, which is a force majore, perhaps the force majore. It was precisely the cause that seemed to get buried in the drums and shouting and costumes. It's hard to point out to a soldier that he can think for himself and does not have to be a uniformed puppet marching to another man's cadence when you are a uniformed puppet marching to another man's cadence.
At the CINCPAC gate, or as near as the aloha-shirt-clad Hawaii Police Department officers would let us get -- maybe 50 yards -- the crowd of protesters chanted, "We're not against the soldiers, we're against the war" for a few minutes.
And I wonder, who is it then who drops the bombs, loads the weapons, scrubs the boats, files the papers in the office, but soldiers?
We cannot simultaneously be against war and for the instrument of war. We crumble in our own nonsensical prevarication.
Yes, if we go through with this war, you, Mr. and Ms. Soldier, likely will be partly responsible for the widowhood of another hundred thousand or so Iraqi women. As an American taxpayer, so will I.
The protest seemed a troubling metaphor for Hawaii's anti-war movement, especially the juxtaposition of a diverse assemblage of war protesters pathetically chanting "We're not against the soldiers, we're against the war" as short-haired, angry men drove past screaming "Bomb Iraq!" and flipping us the bird.
We are mealy-mouthed in our niceties and attempts to assuage everyone who may be offended that we don't think killing other people is the answer. Guess what? We're not going to change the minds of a significant number of soldiers, we're not going to win over the Bush-heads, and the corporate national media aren't going to cover us any more seriously than to think of us as "the usual rabble" as long as we look and act like, well, the usual rabble.
What we need to do is present our best argument as forcefully -- and peacefully -- as possible. That argument is that this war, if it comes, will be a travesty of humanity. I don't think that message got across at the protest.
I'm not sure when drums and puppets and costumes were incorporated into legitimate protest, but I'm certain that utter silence would have been a much louder condemnation of America's latest war for oil than all of that theater.
C.R. Dudley is a Star-Bulletin staff member. My Turn is periodic column written by Star-Bulletin employees. My Turn is a periodic column written by
Star-Bulletin staff members expressing
their personal views.
